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On the Yoga of Patanjali and King Bhoja.Pdf C ON THE YOGA OF PATANJALI AND KING BHOJA Dr. Suryansu Ray According to the Vedas, all living beings, including plants, microbes or developed creatures, are entangled in material bodies from time immemorial. They have been continually migrating from one body to another, the exact form of which depends on their past fruitive actions and the intensity of their desires in their current life. For migrating from one body to another, there are available 8.4 million species on this earth alone. Although the original state of these sparks of life is blissful by default, they falsely suffer relentless agony during their seemingly endless journey through this horrible vortex of transmigration. This false sense of suffering, being experienced by the genuinely happy consciousness, is due to a shroud of ignorance that blinds their faculty of discriminating between what is and what appears. In fact, ignorance is a sure symptom of consciousness entangled in matter. It is produced by their failure to differentiate between matter and consciousness. This gloomy situation is not, however, hopeless for a soul arrested in a body. The Vedas announce the voice of hope that this bondage, although from eternity, is not at all permanent and that there exist several regular systems, which can be followed in a controlled manner with a view to breaking out of the vicious cycle of transmigration. One of these systems is called the yoga as written down by Maharshi Patanjali in the form of sūtras, that is, aphorisms. It has been and is still being practised by yogīs for liberation from their material bondage so that the body is finally cast off. Patanjali systematised a discipline which is as old as the creation of life in our universe. It is hinted in literature that Hiraņyagarbha was the source of the knowledge of yoga. Being the creator of all living entities, he is surely identified as the Recreator of Living Bodies, Brahmā, himself. Why should yoga be concomitant with the reintroduction of bonded consciousness in bodies? The purpose of creating nature is to provide a continued opportunity to these hapless souls so that they can make renewed efforts to liberate themselves. In this effort the yoga is ever ready as a powerful tool in the hands of man. It is not clear whether the Patanjali of yoga fame and the Patanjali of Mahābhāşya fame are different people or the same personality. From the linguistic point of view, they must be two different personalities. The time of the Patanjali of yoga could not be decided. He lived any time from several centuries to several thousand years BC. In India life is characterised by eternity and the historical bodies it assumes are given no importance. Now, what is the nature of this so-called liberation for which man has expended the whole of his life or even several lives? Different occasions use different terms for liberation -- mokşa (liberation), mukti (deliverance), kaivalya (the unique original status), apavarga (declassification), and so on. Patanjali asserts that, when one achieves kaivalya, one is reestablished in one's original status. When a man achieves this state he becomes aware of the difference between matter and consciousness. He realises that he is different from his body. He casts off his body finally. His sorrows vanish absolutely. He is again in his blissful state. For him there is nothing to be known, nothing remains 118 unknown, and nothing is knowable. He is in a nonmaterial pure conscious form. What he wills obtains. However, he has not gone to somewhere else. Mokşa does not mean some special abode. It means that his illusions are dispelled, all his doubts are cut asunder, and all his knots of bondage are split off. He is beyond the control of material forces, both functional and emotional. Since he no longer requires the Nature, the Mother Nature ceases to take care of him and turns her face away from him. In fact, if all the living beings were liberated at the same time, the Nature would crumble to nothingness. That does not happen, however, because all are not liberated simultaneously, and the Nature continues her existence in cycles. Let us now see how the techniques, prescribed by Patanjali, help the yogī dispel his illusion and achieve the state of deathlessness. It is necessary to be familiar with the karmachakra ( the system of fruitive actions ). Signals from the material surroundings fall on the five sense organs and are rearranged as material perceptions on a screen in the brain called the manas ( the mind ). This perception then passes through a device in the brain called the ahamkāra ( the self-tinging device ). Now the perception no longer remains a neutral one, but it has now something to do with me. A copy of this self- perception, known as karma ( action ), is saved in a cell called the karmakośa or the karmāśaya ( the action cell ). This is the store of my experience. The main branch of the self-tinged perception, however, finally arrives at a device in the brain called the buddhi (intellect). Buddhi is the decision-making device, which now decides what this perception, tinged with myness, actually is and what has to be done with it. The perception may be a still-picture, an audio-video picture, a smell, a sound, a sensation of heat or light, and so on, which have something to do with me. This is the so-called cognitive process. The decision made by the buddhi is generally called the bhoga, something to finish off by undergoing, something to suffer-enjoy. Buddhi, being made of matter, cannot suffer-enjoy the bhoga itself but presents the bhoga to the soul. This can happen due to the reason that the soul and the buddhi are too closely bound to be differentiated. Since the soul is blinded by ignorance, it falsely suffers-enjoys the perception as its own, feeling heat or pain, sorrow or happiness. The bhoga finishes then and there. If the decision made by the buddhi about the perception is such that some physical action like running, killing, etc. is required, appropriate orders are given to the five work-organs like the hands and feet. That means, one karma induces another karma during the process of undergoing bhoga. Sometimes a decision is such that no action can be taken immediately and the bhoga has to be postponed to a later time. For example, a convict undergoes death penalty the next month, or a ninety-year old unmarried man desires to be killed by his grandson. Such a decision is called a karmaphala ( fruit of action ) or a prārabdha and is saved in a second cell called the prārabdhakośa or the phalāśaya, to be undergone at an appropriate future time, in the current birth or over a span of several births. Prārabdhas cannot be written off through transmigration; it must be finished off only by suffering-enjoying it. It can, however, be transferred from one body to another to be finished off by somebody else. The sequential process, just described, in which signals through the sense organs are arranged into a perception on the screen of the mind, the perception passes through the self-tinging device, the ahamkāra, a copy of the perception accumulates into the cell of 119 karma as my experience, the perception with myness reaches the buddhi, the buddhi makes a decision about this perception turning it into a bhoga and presenting it to the soul where the bhoga ends, the work-organs are stimulated for mechanical actions, the bhogas with a future date of suffering are accumulated in the cell of prārabdha, -- is called the karmachakra, the cycle of actions. This is like an electronic circuit that runs millions of times in a second. Either this whole system or the final device, the buddhi, is called the chitta in the yoga of Patanjali. The cycle of chitta that functions so rapidly is called the chittavritti, the function of the chitta. Now, according to the Vedic theory, as long as the karmakośa, the cell of karma, remains full, the living entity continues its journey of transmigration. As soon as this cell becomes empty the soul is liberated. But heaps of karma, that is fruitive actions, have been accumulated in this cell for thousands of past lives and are still being accumulated daily in the current life. Due to the rapid course of the karmachakra, it is extremely difficult for a man to stop any more karma to be accumulated in the cell of karma. The theory, however, says further that it is not impossible to empty the cell fully and come out of the state of repeated birth and death. Think of the cell of karma as a bottle full of camphor and without a lid. If you do not put any more camphor into the bottle, the camphor in the bottle will evaporate automatically. So, here lies the trick. If we are able to stop the current perceptions, which are formed on the screen of the mind, from being saved in the karmakośa as accumulated karma, the karmakośa will be emptied of its contents automatically. It is now clear that the only purpose of various methods of spiritual practices followed by those who desire to be liberated is to stop the current karma from being added to the already accumulated mountains of karma. Some of the effective methods are yoga, nişkāma karma ( result-independent action ), kartritvahīna karma ( doing without the sense of authority ), bhakti ( establishing a worldly relation with God ) and nāma (silent repetition of a string of words, signifying God and invoking His blessings, obtained from an authorised guru ).
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